


Of Brokenness without You

by dolcewrites



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: And Eliza deals with a lot of shit alone, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fainting, Grief/Mourning, Hamliza, Hurt/Comfort, In which Hamilton is busy suppressing the Whiskey Rebellion, Miscarriage, November 1794, Whump, hamiliza
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 06:34:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17038577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dolcewrites/pseuds/dolcewrites
Summary: In November of 1794, Eliza suffers a miscarriage that breaks her -- mentally and physically. Alone in Philadelphia with Hamilton away fighting the rebels, she has never needed him with her more than now.





	Of Brokenness without You

**Author's Note:**

> This is a reimaginging of Elizabeth Schuyler-Hamilton's miscarriage in 1794. The kids are the same age as they would be historically, the miscarriage and John's sickness actually happened, but the rest is just my own artistic license-- don't put this in y'all's essays. 
> 
> I based these characters off those in Hamilton the musical, but you could see them in any context you want, I guess. Just know that they aren't mine.

Calling it pain would be like calling hurricanes a summer breeze.

 

Eliza clutches her abdomen, ebbing with pulsing pain, but also a barren emptiness in which life was long gone.

 

A life she had never been able to protect. Another life that could have shared a fraction of his mannerisms, a hint of the Schuyler sass, and the same shine in the eyes of Alexander and all its brothers and sisters it had yet to meet.

 

She wants to curl up in bed and cry. She doesn’t want to leave the safety of her own room, but she has no choice. As she had done so every day in the past three days, she guides herself out of her bed, ignoring the twinges of protest from her lower belly, still unrecovered from the day she found out.

 

From the day she lost her child.

 

She passes by her daughter Angelica in the corridor, who wordlessly embraces her, tightly so, too. She had only let Philip know — no, the midwife did, when she was too stricken to even put together sounds which made a word. She assumes that he confided in his sister — the only one who would match his maturity and compassion, even though she was two years younger. Eliza forces her hand to steady as she strokes her daughter’s hair and plants a kiss on her head.

 

“How is John?” she whispers, knowing that she would have stayed with her baby brother the most when Eliza’s body couldn’t have handled late nights by his side. Angelica looks up at her mother, and with a pang Eliza saw the dark circles that ringed her eyes, and the dullness of fatigue had taken over the shine in them. She smiles, still, and cocks her head to one side. “Much better. The doctors say he’ll definitely be okay.”

 

“Oh, thank heavens.” She holds her daughter to her again, cupping the back of her head with a hand, feeling the relief course through her and flowing out through silent tears. One was too much to bear. If she had lost little John too…

 

“Run along now, love,” she says to Angelica, letting her go and kissing her forehead again. Angelica nods and starts to go, but she turns around with a face that pierced Eliza completely. Her eyes — in that moment, they were Alexander’s, brimming with pity, and empathy, and love.

 

She had not seen Alexander’s eyes in such a long time.

 

Eliza spends all morning with the children. She first coaxes the elder ones to finish their meals and begin their lessons, kisses Philip on the head before he leaves the house, and then she tends to John in the nursery, rocking him and singing to him in his fits of fever that sent him wailing into oblivion. After midday, she leaves the house and goes out for a walk on her own.

 

Her defences scatter as soon as she leaves her children, and grief overtakes its place in consuming her existence. Her breath comes out shuddered, her hands are clammy and clenched, and her eyes well with tears that blur her vision. She walks along the street, filled with playing, laughing children. They had whole limbs, whole minds — whole lives. Eliza touches her abdomen again.

 

Alexander didn’t even get to hold it in his arms.

 

It was exactly as Eliza had dreaded, but not the way she expected to dread. She had nightmares of letters arriving announcing the death of a Secretary Hamilton in battle, and she would be left widowed, pregnant, and as time passes, to raise the child without him by her side. Hamilton, gone, gone, to fight. Always, to fight for what’s right.

 

Her heart clenches; and her vision is reduced to specks of stars, flashes. Pain courses through her, an iron fist on her bones, her muscles, refusing to ever let her escape from the pain. Her heart shatters to a million pieces, its shards bouncing off the streets of Philadelphia.

 

“S…Someone catch her!”

 

The protesting whinny of horses being tugged to a skidding halt already sounded so distant to Eliza.

 

***

 

Her head is gently cradled, cushioned from the rhythmic bobbing of the carriage.

 

Eliza’s heart thumps harder as she slowly rises to consciousness. The brief comfort of her pillow scatters as her senses recover and she realises she doesn’t know where she was. One hand flies to her abdomen, and then she remembers, with a pain that pulsed raw in her heart, that she no longer had anything else to protect.

 

Another hand laces around hers on her stomach, newly bandaged and calloused, seeping warmth into her hand and through her body. Eliza’s heart dips in disbelief.

 

As his thumb massages her trembling hand she clutches it tightly. “Alexander?”

 

He shushes her gently, moving such that her head would lie more comfortably on his lap. “Don’t try to speak, Eliza.”

 

“Alexander…” A sob wells in Eliza’s throat as her entire body tenses up with the same wave of pain — aching, burning grief.

 

“Shhh. I know.” His voice trembles slightly with the grief of a proud father. “I came as soon as I heard.”

 

“I…”

 

“It’s okay, Eliza, I’m here now. I’m right here.” He holds her hand tighter, bringing it up to his dipped head to press a deep kiss onto it. “See, I’m right here.”

 

Eliza lets her head sink into his lap, inhaling his familiar musk. “W…what happened…?” It takes all of her strength to breathe out these words, barely audible.

 

_The carriage skidded to a halt, jolting Hamilton against the door and tumbling out on the ground. He didn’t have time to regain his composure before he realised that a woman was falling._

 

_He dived, catching her and cradling her as she dropped. As he studied the collapsed woman, something didn’t feel quite right. He felt as though he had held her before; her frame was just so familiar to him…_

 

_“Eliza,” he gasped in realisation at the limp body in his arms. Scooping her tighter to him, he took off, running, running, to the nearest doctor he knew._

 

_“Son. Son!” A man intercepted him. The groom._

 

_“I’ll settle the payment later —“_

 

_“Don’t worry about that, now. Take one of my stallions and go. It’s a long journey.”_

 

_Eliza never woke up, not when Alexander rushed her to the doctor, not when she was examined and prescribed nothing but bed rest, and not until she was back in a carriage, tucked away safely in his hold._

 

“We’ve arrived, Eliza,” he wakes her gently with a brush of his fingers against her pale cheek. Eliza stirs, gathering all of her strength to sit upright as her husband thanks the groom and pays him. Alexander leaves the carriage first, Eliza following, stumbling down, her feet tripping over one another and falling straight into Alexander’s catch.

 

“You’re too weak, let me carry you,” he murmurs. Exhausted, she gratefully lets him pick up her limp form, burrowing closer to his chest as he walked, shielding her from the frosty night air.

 

As they enter the house, Philip greets them. He briefly discusses Eliza with his father before assuring him that all of his younger siblings had been accounted for and put to bed. Alexander kisses him on his head and promises that they would catch up more when “his mother was recovered.” Philip agrees, a hint of a smile on his face that his father was home.

 

Alexander takes Eliza to their bedroom, laying her down and helping her change into her nightgown. Then, he tucks her in and slides under the covers with her, holding her close to him, covering her face, the nape of her neck with gentle kisses, cuddling her, soothing her. 

 

“I was so alone,” Eliza murmurs brokenly as she holds onto his arms.

 

“I know, I know,” he comforts her, rocking her as if his life depended on it. “I’m not going anywhere. Not anymore.”

 

“But —“

 

“No, Eliza.” He massages her shoulder blades, which had become dangerously protruding. “I’ve resigned from public office. I asked to come home. For you and for the children.”

 

“I’m sorry — ”

 

“No, Eliza, it was my fault I wasn’t here,” Alexander says quietly. “But what matters is that you _are_ here, and safe, and alive.” He takes both of her cold hands, kissing them until some colour returned to them.

 

“Come here, Eliza. I’ll watch over you while you sleep.”

 

Eliza’s face crumples as she lets sobs freely wrack her body, and Alexander holds her until her tears seep into his nightclothes and her frantic gasps turns into snuffling noises of sleep. Alexander runs a hand down her back, pulling her closer, and he doesn’t sleep until he feels her grow limp in his arms.


End file.
